


curses and summer holidays

by jolybird



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cabins, Card Games, Cousins, Curses, Family Feels, Friendship, Gen, Ghost Stories, Harry Potter Next Generation, Summer, Summer Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-12-17 01:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21046148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolybird/pseuds/jolybird
Summary: Summers at Loch Tay are always eventful, especially when trouble finds Lily and Rose.





	curses and summer holidays

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by a magical little camp up in Vermont. The cabin is real, the curse (hopefully) is not. Thank you N for the beta and mods for hosting.

“Mum, I’m going to say hullo to Siobhan very quickly, okay?” Lily was off before her mother could respond. She ran barefoot across the grass and stone roadways until she was throwing her arms around her dormmate’s neck. 

“I thought you were never going to get here!” Siobhan cried, hugging her back so tightly her bulky bracelets dug into her back. 

“Mum had practice, and Dad didn’t want to come to the loch without her.” 

Siobhan pulled away and frowned. “There’s an Apparition Point right by the lodge; she could have come later.”

“I know but then Dad wouldn’t have been happy. We drove a Muggle car here. You know my Dad likes driving Muggle cars.” Personally, Lily didn’t understand why her Dad enjoyed taking the long way to get to Loch Tay, but they were here now and that’s what counted. 

“Is he better than your Uncle?” 

Lily rolled her eyes. “Siobhan, we’re all better than him.”

Both girls giggled, and then someone called Lily’s name from the direction of the cabin—Rose, one of Lily’s hundred cousins. 

“Oh—the Granger-Weasley’s arrived yesterday.” Siobhan straightened up like she always did when she had some good gossip. “The Thomas’ are here as well, of course, Uncle Dean and my Dad have brewed their own Firewhiskey and got your Uncle drunk last night.” 

“I wasn’t allowed to go with them.” 

Siobhan nodded sympathetically. “Rose told me you were close.” 

“Yes, I’m currently not speaking to Aunt Hermione because she snitched.” 

“She’s already working on a bribe to gain back your love. It’s really good, you have to promise to share.”

Rose shouted Lily’s name again and then groaned so loudly they could probably hear her at the beach.

“We’re going swimming in a bit—” Siobhan told her, indicating the swim suit she was wearing under her oversized West Ham United shirt. 

“I’ll be there!” Lily promised and then made her way back up to her family’s cabin to where Rose was standing on top of the steps with her arms crossed. Several of the Potter’s bags were on the porch next to her. 

“I’m not doing all of this by myself. It’s not even my stuff.” 

“Where are James and Al?”

“I’ve absolutely no clue but Mum said we can’t go swimming until everyone’s unpacked.” 

Lily turned and walked around the cabin to get her backpack from the car. She spotted her Mum talking to Uncle Ron and she frowned. It wasn’t fair that she got to talk to people while she had to unpack the car. Lily took her backpack and then dragged one of the snack bags around the cabin to the steps. Rose, who hadn't moved, just watched her bump the bag of snacks on every single stair instead of offering her any help at all. Lily pushed the sliding door open and dropped the bag in the middle of the kitchen. Behind her, Rose was carrying in some of the other bags.

Lily ran to throw her backpack on her bed—they had been coming here for a couple weeks in the summer every year since she was small, and she always got the bedroom by the kitchen.

They weren’t always in the same cabin, this was actually the first time in this one, but the layout of the cabins were the same. The boys had to sleep across the hall from her parents because the floors squeaked in the hall (yes, all of them, they had experimented last summer) and they would know if they were trying to sneak out. 

The faster they unpacked, the faster they could go swimming, so Lily set about unpacking their food. She dragged a chair over to the kitchen counter and climbed up it. Rose sighed but she started pulling cereal and crackers out of one of the food bags to hand to her. 

The moment Lily turned away from putting the Cheeri-Owls into the cabinet, they fell out. Lily frowned, picked them up and put them back.

She turned to take a can of soup from Rose and was hit with the cereal immediately. Rose laughed so hard, she had to clutch her stomach. Lily didn’t move. “I knew this cabin was cursed.”

“I think you’re a klutz.” 

Lily pouted and put the cereal down a shelf. She watched it for a moment, hands up to protect herself, but the cereal didn’t budge. 

The sounds of people laughing from the beach and someone walking up the front steps caused the pair of them to pick up the pace, and they started throwing things at random into the cabinet. 

*

Someone, long before Lily was born, had found a huge chunk of rock and placed it on the beach. It was the perfect shield against the wind and thus a fire pit had been built against it. It was lit more or less every night, and tonight Lily was definitely going to bed early because her idiot brothers had started telling ghost stories and everyone (but her) thought it was a great idea. 

It wasn’t that she hated ghost stories—when she was a little girl she was one of the best at telling them. The older she got, however, the more she realized how peculiar it was that her Dad would whisper, “No don’t tell them that one,” or sometimes at Hogwarts she’d discover a passageway from one of the ghost stories come to life, or one of her classmates would tell a tale very similar to one she _thought_ her mother had made up. 

Just this year, some Ravenclaws were whispering about a girl that had been taken by a giant snake underneath Hogwarts. Her Mum had once told her about how Dad and Uncle Ron had rescued her from a Basilisk. Lily had laughed at the time because, well, she thought her Mum was making it up to be dramatic! 

So, with these implications at the forefront of her mind, she wasn’t enjoying Al’s tale of a shapeshifter Potions Master that would do anything possible to trick unsuspecting students into losing house points (Al had lost Slytherin two hundred points this year, and he was still trying to rationalize it). 

“So then!” he said to the crowd, half of which was only pretending he was more interesting than their s’mores. “He ran into the garden and it finally got quiet. But then—the hedges started shaking and suddenly he felt himself being pulled into one!” 

“Harry!” Lily’s Mum whispered.

“I didn’t tell him that, I swear!” her Dad hissed back. 

See what she meant? 

Rose nudged her. “You aren’t really frightened are you?”

Lily glared at her. “Of course not!” 

Rose regarded her expression for a moment and then looked up. “Mum, Lily and I are cold. We’re gonna go back up to the cabin.”

“Aright. Behave yourselves.” Aunt Hermione was one of the ones who was invested in Al’s story, and she waved them off with only a smile. 

Rose grabbed Lily’s arm and tugged her through the dark away from the warmth of the campfire and back to Lily’s cabin. 

Another reason Lily didn’t feel like ghost stories right now was because they were staying in Cabin 7 which was the Cursed Cabin. Really—that’s what people called it! Uncle Bill had looked at it—he was a professional Curse-Breaker and he deemed the cabin safe. He once said the curse acted like a Sticking Charm that was fading out: instead of sticking to the cabin, sometimes objects were repelled from the cabin. You had to keep your head up when you walked by it, because sometimes objects would come flying in your direction without warning. Other things happened as well, lights would brighten or dim, or sometimes the water would dry itself when you were trying to shower. No one had ever (really) got hurt (some people had been slightly hurt by flying objects but they hadn’t been looking where they had been going in the first place—James). 

Uncle Bill had never done anything about it because it was relatively harmless and, to quote, “He was on vacation.” 

They slipped inside Cabin 7 and Rose immediately made some hot cocoa. “What do you want to do?”

“We can play cards?” 

“Okay, go get them. I’ll bring the cocoa when it’s done.” 

Lily rummaged through the dresser until she found some playing cards, West Ham United, of course. They went into her bedroom and made themselves comfortable on the bed as they started to play. Lily looked around, it was a small room with two beds and a dresser. The closet was full of her clothes and someone had put her toiletry bag on the top shelf. She’d have to climb onto the chair half poking out from behind her clothes to get it down when she wanted to brush her teeth. From this angle, the ceiling in the closet looked weird, there was extra trim in the center of it. 

“Are you betting?” 

They didn’t have anything to bet but pretend money, but that didn’t stop Rose from asking if Lily wanted to bet constantly. 

Lily looked in the closet again and put her cards down. 

“What are you doing?” Rose asked, making sure to put her own cards down in case this was just an elaborate ruse to see her hand. 

“I think this is the attic.” 

“Don’t you dare,” Rose hissed. 

“There’s something going on here, and I want to find out what.” 

“You don’t have to act like a Gryffindor just because our parents were all Gryffindors. Uncle Bill said whatever it is is fine!” 

Lily didn’t even look at her as she pushed the desk chair into the closet and climbed on top of it. 

“You can’t even reach,” Rose cackled, nearly knocking herself off the bed. 

Lily stretched her arms out, she was close—her fingertips almost brushed against the trim.“Lift me up.” 

“No!” 

“Lift me up!”

“Absolutely not!” 

Something banged on the window and both girls screamed. Any thoughts of terror were wiped away when Teddy Lupin’s laughter echoed into the room. Lily and Rose let out two identical cries of frustration. He was always doing ridiculous stuff like that. 

They turned back to each other, and Lily dealt the rest of the cards before he came in and interrupted their game. 

The screen door slid open; they probably should have locked it. Even if it was just for show. 

“What are you doing in here?” Teddy asked as he almost skipped into the room. 

“Oh are you playing cards? Deal me in.” Victoire sat down on the bed and collected the cards up. Rose groaned and rolled her eyes because she had been winning. Lily turned to her favorite cousin and smiled. “Lift me up?”

Teddy lifted one blue eyebrow. “Into the ceiling?”

“Yes, please.” She smiled sweetly. 

Rose sighed. “Don’t. She’s looking for the source of the curse.” 

“Oh that sounds excellent.” Teddy laughed and Lily stuck her tongue out at Rose who turned her back to her. Teddy pulled out his wand and pointed to the chair. “Hold on, I’m going to lift the whole thing.” 

Victoire continued to shuffle the cards but she paused and placed her wand on the bed next to her. Lily gripped the back of the chair tightly as it rose steadily into the air. 

“Is it true that you’re going to be our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?” Lily was impressed with how easily he was able to help her. 

Teddy didn’t look away from Lily as she glanced back at him. “I’m going to be helping a little this year, but I’m not taking over. Or helping grade any essays, so don’t even think about it.” 

Lily let go of the chair and quickly grabbed hold of the trim that squared off what she hoped was the door to the attic. She put one hand on the middle of the square and pushed—nothing. She put both hands on the ceiling panel and pushed. The square budged and after another moment, Lily popped it out. She shoved it aside and squinted into the dark. 

“It kinda feels cursed up here,” she whispered, and then pushed herself up and hooked her leg on the edge of the opening. 

“Oh don’t—” Victoire began but Lily was already flat on her stomach in the dark. The chair hit the floor with a soft thud and Rose whispered something matter-of-factly beneath her. 

“Are you going to fall through the ceiling?” Teddy asked. 

“It’s going to look so bad if you’re the reason a second year fell through a ceiling before you even started teaching,” Rose said, her voice louder this time.

“I’m not going to fall.” 

The chair creaked as Teddy climbed up on it and then his wand was out and lighting the crawl space. 

“Ew,” they both choursed. There was a good half inch of dust covering everything. 

“You’re done for if the dust is cursed…” 

“I get her broom,” Rose called, and Victoire laughed. 

“There,” Lily gasped, spotting some shapes at the far side of the building. 

“Careful, don’t fall through the ceiling.” 

Lily rolled her eyes and gingerly placed her hands on the wooden planks. She was going to have to shower for an hour after this to get the spiders out of her hair. When she neared the shapes, she sat on her feet and with her head and shoulders bent against the dip of the roof, and brushed the dirt off what soon appeared to be a jewelry box. That was a good sign. She sneezed. She picked the jewelry box up and sneezed again. Along with the box there were a couple books (always useful) and something that looked like it used to be an old shoe box. She sneezed twice more and realized there was also an old canoe oar laying behind everything. She put the jewelry box down towards the exit and then picked everything else up and moved it next to it. She crawled next to her pile—sneezed—and then moved it away from her again. She sneezed once again and continued her crawl back to Teddy who was waiting like a lighthouse with his wand. 

When she reached him, he gave her a fist bump and grabbed the oar. “Here,” he called handing the oar down. 

“Oh absolutely not.” 

“Oh no.”

“Can you believe this?” Teddy whispered. “We have to do everything ourselves.” 

“I’m going to go find my dad.” Victoire huffed ,and from where she was peeking down from the attic, Lily watched her actually climb off the bed. 

“Let us at least get in trouble first, Vic.” Teddy tried to reason with her, but Victoire walked from the room and they listened to the screen door open and shut decisively. 

“At least someone has common sense,” Rose said, getting off the bed as well. She peered up at Lily, and Teddy took the opportunity to shout _catch_ and tossed her the oar. Rose caught it (of course she did, she was on the Quidditch team already) and then looked like her soul up and evaporated. 

“I cannot believe you,” she whispered and then dropped the oar on the bed. 

“That’s the spirit.” Teddy smiled, and together the three of them got the rest of their attic treasures onto the bed. Teddy hopped off the chair and then lifted it for Lily to jump down onto. The chair wobbled violently, but Lily only giggled as Teddy lowered her back to the ground.  
She was absolutely covered in cobwebs and dust and what have you to such a degree that when she went to brush off her shirt, small clouds of dirt came off her. 

Teddy laughed. “_Tergeo_.” Instantly, Lily was clean. 

“Oh excellent. Thank you.” 

“I am not sleeping over at all this summer.” Rose promised her, crossing her arms in the doorway. Teddy cast another Cleaning Spell and then, as Lily tried to telepathically tell Rose there was no way a curse would stick to the bed if Vic had gone to get Uncle Bill, Teddy cast a quick, “_Revelio_.”

All the items sat uselessly except for the jewelry box. The lid snapped open and one of the rings glowed a faint yellow as it tried to roll around inside it. The ring looked ancient, and the faint yellow glow sparked a little. 

All the lights in the cabin popped, and they were thrown into complete and suffocating darkness. 

Rose and Lily both screamed and scrambled madly for a moment before they both found themselves clutching each other and the back of Teddy’s shirt. 

“_Lumos_,” Teddy whispered, and Rose had her eyes clenched shut. The faint light from his wand showed them that there was nothing dangerous in here with them. 

Someone was shouting outside though, it sounded like Siobhan’s dad. Actually, it sounded like a couple of people were shouting and a lot of people were talking. 

“Oops,” Lily whispered, and even though she wouldn’t yet open her eyes, Rose laughed. The screen door opened and someone was headed towards them. 

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Victoire said. Her wand brought another light to the room and Rose finally opened her eyes as Victoire walked through the doorway. Both girls took a step back out of the way, and Lily held onto Rose’s arm. 

Uncle Bill followed Victoire in. He was wearing what looked like Aunt Fleur’s Harpies T-shirt, and his hair was sticking up all over the place. 

“Which one of you is responsible for Seamus Finnigan waking up half the loch?” Uncle Bill asked, but then his eyebrows rose at the sight of the pile. “Did someone go climbing up there? Or did you find a spell that worked?”

“Lily climbed up there!” Rose hissed, and Lily lifted her chin. 

“Excellent. I’ve been meaning to get a crack at this for years but couldn’t convince anyone to go up there. It’s a harmless curse as far as they go but still—”

“It’d be nice to not have cereal boxes thrown at you.” 

“Exactly.”

“Whatever it is, it’s the ring—” Rose said quickly. 

“Teddy cast a _Revelio_ on it and it glowed yellow.”

“And then I saw sparks and the power went out!” 

Bill picked up the jewelry box. “I’ll take it and—“

“No!” Rose and Lily shouted together. 

“We want to help!”

“Or at least watch!”

“Please!”

“Please, Uncle Bill, please!” 

Uncle Bill shook his head and sighed. “Okay, but if I see either one of you using anything similar at Hogwarts next year—“

“We won’t tell our parents where we learned it,” Rose promised, and Uncle Bill laughed. 

“I see you two have learned well.” 

Rose and Lily beamed at each other and followed Uncle Bill out into the kitchen to sit at the table. Victoire and Teddy came to watch as well, but Rose and Lily were leaning into each other as they whispered with their Uncle about what counter-curses they thought might help, and they didn’t even notice them there.

**Author's Note:**

> This work is part of the 2019 HP Next Gen Fest.


End file.
